North Salem's Rocky Gale one step from majors
This is Rocky Gale's best shot.
In his fifth year as a minor league baseball player, the 2006 graduate of North Salem High School is hitting a career-best .301 for the Triple A El Paso Chihuahuas and is the closest he has been to making the major leagues.
There have been a lot of stops on his path of being a professional baseball player, but Gale has taken all the trials well.
"The constant has just been the love of the game," said Gale, a catcher. "I love playing the game. I love the profession.
"Nothing has changed, even since I was in college as far as learning and being challenged every day and trying to get better. I just really enjoy getting to play. It's always been something I've wanted to do."
The 6-foot-1, 180 pound Gale spent most of this season with the triple A affiliate of the San Diego Padres backing up catcher Adam Moore, but with Moore on the disabled list – as well as the team's other catcher, John Nester – Gale has gotten a lot more opportunities to play recently.
For the season, he is batting .301 with .331 on-base and .350 slugging percentages, 28 RBIs and eight doubles.
It's a significant improvement from last year when he hit a combined .242 between double and triple A and is the best he's done since hitting .292 with the Eugene Emeralds as a rookie.
Gale credits working with El Paso hitting coach Jody Davis and Jacque Jones this season for his offensive improvement.
Even when he wasn't playing every day, Gale made the most of his at bats, including batting .455 in the 10 games he played in the month of May.
Now that he's the starter he's making it count just as much.
"You always have a role on a team and no matter what your role is, you can't really control it, you want to do your best at whatever your role is," Gale said. "My role as a player is play good defense and give my pitching staff the best opportunity on that day.
"No matter the playing time, however infrequent or how frequent, that doesn't change. Nothing really changes. I think you have to monitor your work outside the field a little more as far as your conditioning and how much working out your doing. Really nothing changes."
Gale knows better than anyone how close he is to the major leagues.
But being the second-leading hitter on your triple A team is no guarantee of a late-season call-up.
"I think that for anybody in double A or triple A, even high A, you start to try to sense the big leagues and how you fit in," Gale said. "The focus is in developing and trying to be a successful big league player.
"Everyone obviously wants to be there. I want to become a successful minor league player. I have a lot of room to be able to improve in those categories. This game, it's incredibly challenging. I can't look past what's right in front of me. That's the challenge of today."
Gale said that it is beneficial that he wasn't called up to the major leagues earlier in his career before he was physically and mentally ready to play the game at that level.
"Part of what Rocky wanted to do was to play minor league baseball long enough to be able to be a coach, and Rocky's definitely logged enough time to be a coach," said North Salem coach Chris Lee. "He's a phone call away from being called up into the bigs.
"The other thing he's got going for him is he's such a good teammate, he's such a good pro, he's got a good chance of getting called up because he's such a good teammate."
He was drafted in the 24th round of the 2010 draft out of the University of Portland after hitting .347 as a senior.
Gale spent his rookie year of professional baseball in familiar territory by playing with the Eugene Emeralds – he lived in nearby Yoncalla when his father was coaching there.
For the final game of that season he was called up to the Portland Beavers.
Though he didn't play that day, he got a taste of Triple A baseball that stuck with him.
"That day was pretty special just because I had gone to Beavers games in April when I was at University of Portland," said Gale, who's father, Paul, formerly was the coach at Corban (when it was Western Baptist) and is a scout for the Houston Astros.
"It was special to me. It was eye opening. It was a bigger stage, bigger players. The next year I was a journeyman. I was in triple A that next year and playing."
So that he can afford to continue to chase his dream, Gale and wife Leah (Gradwohl), also a former North Salem athlete, has returned to Oregon in the offseasons and worked construction while living in Portland.
It's a less-than glamorous gig, but it affords him the funds to spend the spring in Arizona during training camp, even in the years when he wasn't invited to the Padres' training camp as he was this season.
"I just think that Rocky, he's the original dirtbag," Lee said. "He loves being on the baseball diamond. That passion helps him get through the doldrums of the minor leagues.
"And how much he has an understanding, loving wife that will support him in his passion."
Gale said he has learned a great deal about baseball and how to play the game from Chihuaua's teammates Jason Lane, Jeff Francoeur and Travis Buck, all of whom have big-league experience.
"You know, I still feel like a young guy," said the 26-year-old Gale. "I'm mostly looking up and learning.
They've been somewhere and they've done stuff that you want to do some day."
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6701 or follow at twitter.com/bpoehler